LLM students Manuela Cardoso (Public International Law), Linda Ardenghi (International Human Rights Law) and Jari van den Berg (Public International Law) coached by Killian Roithmaier and Dominique Mollet, represented the University of Groningen at the 15th Frits Kalshoven International Humanitarian Law Competition. With eight teams competing, the University of Groningen reached the finals and ended up achieving second place. This is the first time in the history of the competition that a team from Groningen reached the finals in the Peace Palace.

The Frits Kalshoven competition is an annual event, jointly organized by The Netherlands Red Cross and Belgian Red Cross-Flanders. The competition provides students with the opportunity to practically engage with Intenational Humanitarian Law by engaging in role plays or simulations, attending expert lectures, expanding their professional network, and by competing against other teams during the moot court, in which they plead a fictional case.

The preparations for the competitions started in October 2021 through internal workshops on both the content of international humanitarian law, the practical aspects of mooting, and through four lectures organized by the Netherlands Red Cross and Belgian Red Cross-Flanders. The Groningen team also gained essential knowledge during the course International Humanitarian Law taught by Audrey Fino. These efforts culminated in an impressive performance in the preliminary rounds that convinced all jury members.

The competition took place between 9th to 11th March, 2022 in The Hague. During the first two days, the teams participated in workshops about the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement. The teams also took part in role-plays, such as media training, International Committee of the Red Cross field representatives and military legal advisers. The team excelled in the preliminary rounds in the pleading preliminary rounds that took place on Friday in the Palace of Justice and advanced to compete in the final rounds in the Peace Palace.

The team learned and grew a lot throughout the competition and is very proud to bring this achievement to the University of Groningen and the Faculty of Law.  They are very grateful for the effort of all those that made this possible, in particular their coaches, the Department of Transboundary Legal Studies, the Netherlands Red Cross and the Belgian Red Cross-Flanders.

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